Apple shop for downtown Sydney

The interior of the new Apple retail store on Fifth Avenue in New York which opened last year.Photo: Reuters

Asher MosesFebruary 8, 2007

Apple is finalising plans to build its first official retail
stores in Australia, with at least one set for Sydney.

Recent media reports have suggested the iPod maker is also
planning to open a shopfront in Melbourne, but the company would
not confirm or deny this.

"We have submitted concepts for the store we'd like to build in
Sydney and are working with the city to gain their approval," Apple
spokesman John Marx said.

"Our stores are a huge hit in the US, Canada, UK and Japan, and
we look forward to bringing the unique Apple retail experience to
customers in Australia."

Apple has opened more than 170 retail stores worldwide, most of
which are located in the US, although there are seven stores in
Britain, four in Canada and seven in Japan.

Apple's stores are known for their clever, unique designs and
appear to exist primarily to reinforce the company's brand
cachet.

The entrance to the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City
is a glass cube, each side measuring just under 10 metres. An Apple
logo is suspended in the middle of the cube, and a circular
staircase or glass elevator leads customers into the
900-square-metre store below.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs played a hand in designing the cube, which
was inspired by I. M. Pei's glass pyramid at the Louvre in
Paris.

It was not clear where Apple's Sydney store would be located or
if it would offer a similarly unique design, but a report in a
Melbourne newspaper yesterday said Apple had leased space in a
"multi-level retail centre being developed at a former Westpac site
on the corner of George and King streets".

Apple products have been sold in Australia through the company's
own online store and through authorised resellers.

By opening its own stores locally, Apple would encroach on the
market of those resellers. Overseas, this has caused a significant
number of them to close down, says ifoAppleStore.com, a site
dedicated to covering developments around Apple's retail
stores.

But local Apple resellers do not appear to be worried - Tim
Kleemann, joint managing director of Next Byte, Australia's largest
chain of independent Apple stores, said he welcomed the opening of
the Sydney store.

"We've been expecting this development for the best part of two
years now and the assumption that there will one day be Apple
stores in Australian cities is something that we [have already]
factored into our plans," he said.

He added that there are things traditional resellers can "do
better" than an official Apple store, such as offer a more
extensive range of third-party products.

"If it doesn't have an Apple logo on it, it doesn't seem to have
a lot of shelf space in the [overseas] Apple retail stores," he
said.